The present invention relates to a technical field of a print system for outputting mainly a print (photography) in which an image taken on a film is reproduced.
Currently, images recorded on photographic film such as negative film, reversal film and the like (hereinafter referred to simply as film) have been commonly printed on light-sensitive material (photographic paper) by means of direct (analog) exposure in which a film image is projected onto the light-sensitive material.
In recent years, a digital photo printer using digital exposure has been developed to a practical application level. According to this new technology, an image recorded on a film is read photoelectrically and the read image is converted to digital signals and subjected to various image processing to produce output image data for recording purpose. A light-sensitive material is scanned and exposed by a recording light modulated depending on this image data so as to record an image (latent image), which is subsequently developed to produce a (finished) print.
In the digital photoprinter, images are handled as digital image data so that an exposure condition for print can be determined by image data processing. Therefore, it is possible to carry out effective image processing operations such as the correction of washed-out highlights or dull shadows caused by photographing with backlight or an electronic flash or the like, sharpness processing, the correction of color or density failure and the like. As a result, a high quality print which has never been realized by a conventional direct exposure can be obtained. Further, composition of plural images, splitting an image to plural image sections, composition of characters or the like can be achieved by image data processing and freely edited/processed print corresponding to a purpose can be output.
Further, in the digital photoprinter, not only an image can be output as a print (photography) but also image data can be supplied to a computer or the like and recorded in such a recording medium as a floppy disk. Therefore, the image data can be used for various purpose other than photography.
The digital photoprinter having such features basically comprises a scanner (image reading apparatus) for reading an image recorded on the film photoelectrically by projecting a reading light to a film and reading its projection light, an image processing apparatus for carrying out a specified image processing on an image data read by the scanner or an image data supplied from a digital camera or the like so as to obtain an output image data for image recording, that is, exposure condition, a printer (image recording apparatus) for recording the image as a latent image by exposing a light-sensitive material by, for example, scanning with light beam corresponding to an image data output from the image processing apparatus, and a processor (developing apparatus) for carrying out development processing on a light-sensitive material exposed by the printer so as to produce a (finished) photographic print in which an image is reproduced.
In the photographic print relying upon the film, there often occurs an opportunity that an image (frame) printed once is output again as a reprint to meet a request for the reprinting. In this case, it is demanded that the color and density of the image coincide with a previously output print (usually, print output at the time of the simultaneous printing that is carried simultaneously with developing the photographed film). However, there often occurs a case in which the color and density of the image differ between the preceding print and the reprint because of an error in judgment or operation of an operator, so that such a complaint from a customer is often heard.